Israel Active

Deputy Platoon Commander Captain (res.) Raz Levy, 29, a lawyer from Tel Aviv, is the only Jewish officer to serve in an entirely Druze battalion. There are many instances in which Arab soldiers serve and excel in the IDF's mainly Jewish units, but it rarely happens the other way around.

The annual gathering of the Zionist General Council held in Jerusalem was entitled “Empowering Women within the Zionist Enterprise.” The 400 delegates included many women who have made it their life’s work to contribute to society. (Zionism gave women the vote before many countries.)

(thanks to Israel21c) ‘There’s nothing quite like Israel in the world and nothing quite like the women of Israel,’ says Yael Nitzan. She is transforming an empty 200-year-old sheikh’s palace in Haifa into the Museum of Israeli Women.

Yad Sarah is the leading volunteer-staffed organization in the State of Israel. It has just launched its new facebook site where you can read about the numbers of branches, volunteers, annual loans of medical equipment. But more importantly, about the amazing people involved.

The Hadassah Foundation presented its Bernice S. Tannenbaum Award to Ifat Baron, the founder and Executive Director of Israeli non-profit IT Works. Baron has already been named by Israel's Ministry of Education as the person "with the most influence in IT education in Israel today."

Daniella Hadassi, a drama therapist who treats children at Israel’s Schneider Children's hospital brought her puppet dog Chico to the area of the tsunami disaster in Japan and provided therapy to children who were injured a year ago. The hospital also gave a puppet to each child.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Ivory Coast’s Muslim President Ouattara noted the close state of bilateral cooperation at their meeting in Israel. They discussed cooperation in the fields of health, agriculture, science and technology.

On his visit to Israel, Professor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, the director-general of the Central Bank of Uganda, said, “I can’t think of a better role model for my country to follow than Israel. As far as I’m concerned, Israel provides a far better model for us than the US or Europe.”

The IDF holds drills each year with the US Armed Forces to practice how to extract injured victims from a collapsed building, to clear paths through debris and to navigate in the chaos that is left by a natural disaster.

Jewish Heart for Africa has used Israeli solar and agricultural technologies to assist rural villages in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda. The technology serves 250,000 people and JHfA is shortly to complete its 57th project.